Thargoid invasion - Next target systems?

[Phill P]

I would be very surprised if "take out all of a Titan's control systems first" was a requirement to deal with them, in which case it's not stopping progress towards that objective. If "take out all its Matrix systems first" is a requirement, then they are part of that final objective (and equally unimplemented yet) and exactly the same.

Yes I put it clumsily but I did not mean taking out all the systems around the Titans is a literal requirement for beating the Titans themselves. I see it as an objective to achieve while waiting for the chance at the ultimate objective of taking out the Titans, to try and achieve what we can in the meantime, keep what systems we can from being invaded and stop what expansion we can - until we can kill or weaken the Titans and take out the systems closer to them in any kind of realistic time frame. That's what I meant by progress towards, not a literal step of "do A before you can do B".

Not being able to do anything about the Titans, which we have not been able to do throughout, is not the same thing as suddenly placing a new obstacle in the way of something we can already do and have been doing for months. Even if you're right about matrix systems being the key to the Titans. It could equally be the other way round, that some new development with the Titans is the key to clearing matrix systems. It's still beside the point.

If the objective is "clear everything but the Titan", then (possibly except at Leigong) the inverse-cube difficulty curve makes that practically impossible anyway,

I did mention this in a previous post, that we are not supposed to clear the nearest systems until we weaken the Titans first, just as we were never expected to stop the initial expansions. But to me this does not excuse giving us confirmation that matrix systems are working as intended or saying it's a bug, which is the least they could do.

regardless of the presence of Matrix systems. There are 150 controls, about a third of them inhabited, within the 15LY shell, and except for Leigong's unusual situation, generally very strongly cross-linked especially below 10 LY. Another 30-ish Matrix systems outside the 15LY line isn't going to be materially important to that before whatever U17, U18, etc. bring, in the same way that the Titans not yet being attackable isn't.

Maybe, maybe not, we don't know how much they will proliferate yet so I don't think you can say this with any certainty, but in any case it's holding us back on what we are able to do by keeping us stuck going round in pointless circles defending the same few systems over and over, something we have been trying to get away from for the last 39 weeks and which has already burned out a lot of people.

The thing I find most strange about the Barnacle Matrix sites is this:
- we know they're there, they got found on the first day of U16, it's not like they're a big secret
- it's been four weeks and there's been zero mention of them in Galnet at all

This is what I mean, no official mention of whether it's a bug or intentional. I get they may not want to spoil something by revealing info too soon but they could give us something to get a handle on and the fact they haven't stands out. If the Glaive had been unkillable I doubt people would have passively accepted it but unclearable systems get nothing more than a shrug.

 

[Kira Goto]

So probably not quite the right place to ask, but when supporting an alert with only distant starports like 65 Kappa Tauri(ignoring that AXI’s target plan is to cut it off from Indra for now), is it better to focus on doing AX reactivations or evacs and/or bringing in supplies? (Sampling isn’t really in for me, I do want to play the game. But I figured if any more alerts are cleared this should be one of them.)

I assume Odyssey settlements have already been considered, and found to not be a particularly good option for this. Also feeling the lack of group evacs - wonder if invasions make those pop up again, if any go through for next week. (On this note, why do I have to care about an ‘illegal passenger’ when they’re asking me to get them away from the Thargoids?)

 

[Felix DiCestria]

So probably not quite the right place to ask, but when supporting an alert with only distant starports like 65 Kappa Tauri(ignoring that AXI’s target plan is to cut it off from Indra for now), is it better to focus on doing AX reactivations or evacs and/or bringing in supplies? (Sampling isn’t really in for me, I do want to play the game. But I figured if any more alerts are cleared this should be one of them.)

I assume Odyssey settlements have already been considered, and found to not be a particularly good option for this. Also feeling the lack of group evacs - wonder if invasions make those pop up again, if any go through for next week. (On this note, why do I have to care about an ‘illegal passenger’ when they’re asking me to get them away from the Thargoids?)

Last time I tried a settlement in an Alert system I found the standard mission board, nothing regarding the Thargoids at all.
We know that evacuating the injured counts more than combat per se, so my gut would say go for that. Also it's easier to stack up evac missions than for other activities, assuming missions to be roughly equal in value.
I think we'll be hard pressed this week even without all the disruption. Hope the invasion fans are ready for Thargsday.

 

[Phill P]

So probably not quite the right place to ask, but when supporting an alert with only distant starports like 65 Kappa Tauri(ignoring that AXI’s target plan is to cut it off from Indra for now), is it better to focus on doing AX reactivations or evacs and/or bringing in supplies? (Sampling isn’t really in for me, I do want to play the game. But I figured if any more alerts are cleared this should be one of them.)

Reacs seem to do more for the system giving the mission than the system you do the missions in, but it's still dog slow. Rescues and deliveries will be faster as Felix says. Some combat is worth it though, see below.

I assume Odyssey settlements have already been considered, and found to not be a particularly good option for this. Also feeling the lack of group evacs - wonder if invasions make those pop up again

It's not that group transportation doesn't appear, it's that they get cleared out fast. If anything an Invasion will run them out faster.

How do you feel about killing Scythes? Take a shieldless hull tank with 4 azimuth multis, or regular ones if you don't have those, a couple of ECMs and a single escape pod in the hold. If you don't have a pod get one from a Combat Aftermath. In any Alert you will be interdicted by a Scythe within a couple of minutes, regular as clockwork, whenever you are in Supercruise with a pod on board. Hold down the ECM and kill them till you run out of ammo. Collecting their remains is useful for unlocking azimuth multis.

 

[Grimscrub]

Far as 65 kappa tauri, gathered an extra ~450 scout samples from a few orthrus signals in the system to check my info/maths on that front before patch, rather than leaving it til after - blindly obsessing over recapture, blocking off the alert so it can't be targeted while it catches fire behind us sounded a bit too comedic to allow.

Running delivery on arrival in Antai, should see HIP 20605 (440/423), HIP 21946 (2099/2090), 92 Sigma-2 Tauri (892/854), HIP 20815 (890/873), Hyadum II (1526/1497), 70 Tauri (~4100/4036) and maybe 65KT if my estimates are right shift.total samples on carrier is over 10k so, may take longer than half an hour to shift in full - sorry if next server/map update is incomplete.
-- 07:20UTC update; given the Hyadum II sample numbers were checked on carrier and it's showing Half done, deliveries may have been too close to 07:00 servertime. Will have to wait til maintenance is done for final info probably.

 

[Kira Goto]

It's not that group transportation doesn't appear, it's that they get cleared out fast. If anything an Invasion will run them out faster.

The (comparatively) small number of passengers on offer compared to pre-U16 levels still has an effect.

And, sorry, but even if I hate the Scythes(anyone with their head on straight should), I’m kind of past killing the Thargoids overall. At least, at the moment, I prefer non-violent means of assistance. Yeah, it restricts what support I can provide and/or how well… but it’s how it is. My brain gets invested into RP too much so no pulling the trigger on Thargoids.

Though Scythes are quite on the edge of that line again, they don’t seem to have a chance to catch my Cutter unless they show up in tandem with a Glaive(then I don’t know). Do they?

Anyway. I got my answers so thanks. I still find it a bit funny that you get the illegal passenger stuff when evacuating from a war zone, but they act the exact same as a regular one. Kinda feels like that reversion might have been an unintentional result of offering personal transportation around these places… (might since, to my knowledge, there’s been no comment on subject)

 

[Aleks Zuno]

Victories in HIPs 20492, 21946, 20605 and 20815, Col 285 Sectors SH-B b14-5, SM-C b13-0 and RM-B b14-2, Pegasi Sectors OI-S b4-4 and JH-U b3-9, 92 Sigma-2 Tauri, Hyadum II and 70 Tauri! Njorog seems to be doing quite well, and mind that Muruidooges still projects at the very cusp of completion. Meanwhile, before assisting an eviction I think I need to understand the phenomenon of such systems being left alone after reaching one-third or so!

Alerts at 07:20 29th August 3309:
Njorog Alert 90% *91.5% — Taranis 15 Ly, 637 Ls starport, 60 Ls outpost, 107 Ls planet
Luggerates Alert 84% — Oya 22 Ly, 339 Ls outpost, 1473 Ls planet
Holvandalla Alert 78% — Raijin 21 Ly, 86 Ls starport, 19 Ls outpost, 43 Ls planet
Narrowly:
Muruidooges Alert 58% *59.4% — Hadad 18 Ly, 1018 Ls starport, 7225 Ls outpost
Trailing:
65 Kappa Tauri Alert 38% — Indra 25 Ly, 71k Ls starport, 72k Ls planet, delivery results in progress?
Ebisu Alert 20% *20.6% — Taranis 21 Ly, 358 Ls starport, 63 Ls outpost

Evictions:
HIP 30502 Control 50% *51.6% — Hadad 14 Ly, 10.2k strength
Col 285 Sector WY-F b12-1 Control 34% *34.4% — Cocijo 21 Ly, 2691 strength
Kurumanit Control 32% *33.6% — Cocijo 20 Ly, 2978 strength

Clean-up:
HIP 112595 Alert 94% — Raijin 24 Ly, empty
Col 285 Sector KW-M c7-12 Alert 56% — Hadad 18 Ly, empty
Arietis Sector LM-V b2-4 Control 26% — Indra 27 Ly, empty, 308 strength

I see it as an objective to achieve while waiting for the chance at the ultimate objective of taking out the Titans, to try and achieve what we can in the meantime, keep what systems we can from being invaded and stop what expansion we can - until we can kill or weaken the Titans and take out the systems closer to them in any kind of realistic time frame.

Having helped clear hundreds of Control systems, very much so—and only recently tempering it a bit based on the latter thought, at least until we discover whether M. Leigong attacks HIP 9016. It is great to see AXI starting that style of campaign at M. Indra!

Though Scythes are quite on the edge of that line again, they don’t seem to have a chance to catch my Cutter unless they show up in tandem with a Glaive(then I don’t know). Do they?

If you can time ECM pulses well, or if their Containment missiles strike at the same time of course, then their 20 mass-lock factor can not prevent an Imperial Cutter from using a low wake. You will not be able to outrun Glaive damage in normal flight, but shielding well enough ought to be fine. I found that the most damaging thing a Glaive does is not the lightning directly, but the way that seemed to stop a Shield booster briefly.

As always, normally it is relatively trivial to make a vessel tough enough that it has plenty of shield energy after a fifteen-second Exit and Continue, if you find that the Containment missiles simply disallow any moment to use a low wake.

 

[Kira Goto]

As always, normally it is relatively trivial to make a vessel tough enough that it has plenty of shield energy after a fifteen-second Exit and Continue, if you find that the Containment missiles simply disallow any moment to use a low wake.

No trouble using ECM to discard the reboot missiles hereg(as matter of fact, I now mount one on any of my non-combat ships taken into Thargoid zones). I have more concerns in getting caught between two Hunters that repeatedly use their lightning at just precise enough intervals to be incapable of getting speed for a low/high wake.

Granted, that has only occurred to me once and in a ship(Krait) set up to go into Thargoid space so I lived through that double Glaive hyperdiction(and I since just go with heatsink + SR for that ship), as one of them eventually overshot, but it happened.

To be clear here, my concern is for a hyperdiction that combines a Scythe with a Glaive, should such a combination occur - Scythe won’t catch up when it aggros, but the Glaive, different story. And its lighting might allow the other Hunter to catch up.

If it exists as a spawn, I haven’t yet seen it, however. And I do mount a class 6 prismatic shield on that Cutter(repurposed mining vessel) with a few shield boosters, other utilities dedicated to ECM and some other Thargoid kit.

(Still haven’t found myself a satisfactory Python setup that accounts for these enemies. Namely because of limited utility spots.)

 

[Grimscrub]

It is great to see AXI starting that style of campaign at M. Indra!

Just to note these will likely remain shorter/smaller scale ad-hoc efforts, one-week wonders rather than protracted missions.
Indra it was as much to do something about a request from a long time ago, figured rather than just take the one system and skedaddle, broader efforts to give the thargs something else to do, secure stuff nearby and start work towards blocking the 50, 70kLs cruise alerts made sense.

The two systems to block 65 kappa and 69 upsilon sadly couldn't be gathered for pre-update, so we'll have to see how sampling looks with 16.01.

If it remains effective, will probably bounce between maelstroms when possible to shore up and so on, if we get the window to do so.
Originally I was looking to make a similar push on the far/less contested side of Taranis, starting with the >20ly controls and working inwards next week. But looking at the alert situ, there may be plenty of combat priorities taking up the coming week... Will have to see how it goes.

 

[Felix DiCestria]

Though Scythes are quite on the edge of that line again, they don’t seem to have a chance to catch my Cutter unless they show up in tandem with a Glaive(then I don’t know). Do they?

Only if you're taking evacuees through control systems.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Maybe, maybe not, we don't know how much they will proliferate yet so I don't think you can say this with any certainty, but in any case it's holding us back on what we are able to do by keeping us stuck going round in pointless circles defending the same few systems over and over, something we have been trying to get away from for the last 39 weeks and which has already burned out a lot of people.

Sure - at some point they'll start doing that, but not yet. Clearing the Thargoids at all Maelstroms mostly down to the 15 LY line - which the barnacles don't interfere with all that much - is another 400-ish net clearances, and with the difficulty starting to increase significantly within the 20 LY line, that's probably at least the rest of this year, if not longer.

Certainly in the specific case of Njorog it might have been easier to clear the ~11 LY uninhabited Control and defend that indefinitely rather than defending Njorog directly, but in the case of Omumba it's got two uninhabited Controls at 9 LY targeting it; clearing both of those is going to be tricky, keeping them cleared even without barnacles would be near-impossible because they're in the tightly-linked zone around Hadad. Oya's two barnacles are positioned (for now) entirely irrelevantly to the strategic action - the Oya group had already mostly stopped pushing further in even before U16 because, apart from a few isolatable clearances, it'd just result in more work in future weeks to hold almost the same line. Or the perennial attack on Nu Guang at Raijin ... stopping that means either clearing Snoqui (which would just make things worse) or establishing 15 closer clearances and hoping that doesn't switch Raijin into "Oya mode" where it goes for it anyway (or, okay, just letting the Thargoids have it)

Going round in circles at a never-ending stalemate is definitely the likely endgame of the war as currently set up - and at least ambitious recaptures like Njorog and Omumba might make it a more dynamic stalemate than before - but I don't think the barnacles are themselves a significant contribution to that. If in January they are becoming a significant contribution to that and Frontier still haven't done anything more with them, then, sure, the complaints will get a lot louder.

If the Glaive had been unkillable I doubt people would have passively accepted it but unclearable systems get nothing more than a shrug.

I expect that's just a numbers thing. Lots of people want to shoot at Glaives (or at least would like to be able to shoot back) and there were plenty of complaints about them breaking the "rules" previously established about how dangerous an interdiction could be when they showed up in U15.

A few systems, all of which were uninhabited controls of interest only to strategic defence planners (and not even all of those), and most of which weren't even going to be on anyone's target list for months anyway (sure, there are exceptions) ... certainly those people will be frustrated by the lack of information, but on a scale of "Frontier still haven't fixed the bugs in the Colonia Bridge news articles" to "the servers are falling over and it takes five minutes to open the station services screen", it's not going to be very high in terms of mass complaints.

 

[Kira Goto]

Only if you're taking evacuees through control systems.

Well, that saves me that trouble then, at least. I tend to route around those unless there is no other option(but there usually is so yeah). Didn’t pay so much care earlier on in the war, but now, definitely will.

Might have to reconsider the small scoop I originally had on the ship in the size 3 compartment for those slightly longer journeys, seeing the (very high) hyperdiction risk on the way out, though. Unlikely to affect a Python much, but some of the trips are already stretching the Cutter’s default fuel capacity as it is(and don’t feel like burning FSD synths in this scenario).

 

[Grimscrub]

c/o Chao/Veronica Chay - appears that control systems take about the same still.
They delivered the 703 samples for JR-V b2-3 an hour ago, and lo, here we are.

Will resume work now i'm awake again.
- on check, last galaxy map display was 0 chevrons so <2%, and end total is "WarProgress":1.019481, so any change with uninhabited systems would have to be... Small.

 

[Aleks Zuno]

Many thanks for the strength measurement check! Placing very much aside the fact that delivering such myself would not have occurred until around now, I still missed that there would be an update and still feel a bit negligent.

Thank you also to @Shurimal for recounting the battleground visit; definitely it sounds as if we are somewhere around the mid-point, hopefully a bit beyond, of the planned time before something more can be done than holding perimeters around immovable systems. I have a small hope that we will end up quite thankful for having halved that number of systems now rather than later, or at least that some Commanders are happy with getting their previous systems back!

 

[Phill P]

To be clear here, my concern is for a hyperdiction that combines a Scythe with a Glaive, should such a combination occur - Scythe won’t catch up when it aggros, but the Glaive, different story. And its lighting might allow the other Hunter to catch up.

For a Scythe and a Glaive to turn up together (which I haven't seen in hundreds of rescues so far) you would need to be jumping through a Controlled system with passengers or injured on board - a Control system to attract the Glaive and the refugees or injured attracting the Scythe. This is extremely unlikely since you should be routing around Control systems to avoid them completely, filtering the map by system state. Glaives do not hyperdict you going into an Alert. We had early reports that they did but when checked out the pilot had jumped through a Control to get to the Alert and that' where the Glaive attacked. Doing Alerts should be Glaive free.

As for illegal passengers this is simply a copy and paste of a regular passenger board which can include wanted criminals. Which makes no sense in a war context but that's what happens when you copy and paste.

 

[Phill P]

The (comparatively) small number of passengers on offer compared to pre-U16 levels still has an effect.

That's a reversion to how they were before the war. You could always support my ticket on this, in the suggestions channel.

And, sorry, but even if I hate the Scythes(anyone with their head on straight should), I’m kind of past killing the Thargoids overall. At least, at the moment, I prefer non-violent means of assistance. Yeah, it restricts what support I can provide and/or how well… but it’s how it is. My brain gets invested into RP too much so no pulling the trigger on Thargoids.

Completely get that, we are a non combat squadron, specifically set up as a non combat squadron which puts me in an awkward position as we have some people who don't mind combat but due to our remit I can't order them to do it, I can only tell them it's their choice. Even Reacs and Sampling is facing off against the Thargoids more than some people want to and although we have our sampling op running alongside our evac op it's very much a grey area.

 

[Phill P]

in the case of Omumba it's got two uninhabited Controls at 9 LY targeting it; clearing both of those is going to be tricky, keeping them cleared even without barnacles would be near-impossible because they're in the tightly-linked zone around Hadad.

Are controls being retaken after they have been cleared, by the controls near them then? I admit the systems they are expanding into hasn't been something I have tracked, but I did think the expansions were being halted.

 

[Kira Goto]

Are controls being retaken after they have been cleared, by the controls near them then? I admit the systems they are expanding into hasn't been something I have tracked, but I did think the expansions were being halted.

Going off of memory, there hasn’t been any retakes of any unpopulated systems [by the Thargoids] for quite some time now. Even this week looks set to see all unpopulated alerts clear out. Repeatedly clearing two alerts, even unpopulated, at or around 9 ly might still not be worth the effort to guard one system, unless there is a good reason to keep it from being alerted entirely(like having only one outpost - looking at you, Montioch).

Even Reacs and Sampling is facing off against the Thargoids more than some people want to and although we have our sampling op running alongside our evac op it's very much a grey area.

Well, I personally don’t mind the reactivations, but made it a strict rule of mine to avoid fighting Revenants(even if I sometimes get tempted when they somehow spot an SRV that I’ve hidden as well as I could have, or outside the ranges where they should usually spot it). Haven’t had to kill a single one so far, and not encountered any sites that made it impossible(if tricky) to sneak inside.

Sampling? Bit of a grey area for me too, gameplay considerations aside. I don’t strictly mind combat, but that’s more so against humans than Thargoids(for a variety of reasons that would probably be a bit complicated to go into). Sampling, well, it’s not exactly killing them, but still pulling pieces off them. So if I were to do it(my current’s squad rules don’t allow it anyway), I haven’t exactly made a decision about it… in that regard, anyway. The other part comes down to the gameplay reasons I’ve pushed aside for that first part, which make me not want to do it.

Anyway, yeah, not too fond of fighting the Thargoids. Mostly on grounds of RP, but luckily there are sufficient levers to have an effect without firing a gun. Though I also have more of a ‘neutral’ stance toward Thargoids… so maybe that colors some of those views I have on things.

(The only idea I could have about interfering with barnacle matrix sites is something to do with that coral sap stuff, if it doesn’t end up just being pure fluff.)

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Are controls being retaken after they have been cleared, by the controls near them then? I admit the systems they are expanding into hasn't been something I have tracked, but I did think the expansions were being halted.

So far, no - but then so far the Thargoids haven't been attempting to retake that many systems inside 15 LY total, so it's hard to say what would happen if they were in a situation where they needed to try: looking at how much effort you and IDA have put in defending Njorog, it seems obvious that the human advance must stop well before every contested system gets to that difficulty.

Not to say, of course, that targeted recaptures within the 15 LY shell can't be worthwhile so long as there is a plan to either maintain that ground or make use of the temporary respite it provides further out.

 

[Phill P]

Well, I personally don’t mind the reactivations, but made it a strict rule of mine to avoid fighting Revenants(even if I sometimes get tempted when they somehow spot an SRV that I’ve hidden as well as I could have, or outside the ranges where they should usually spot it). Haven’t had to kill a single one so far, and not encountered any sites that made it impossible(if tricky) to sneak inside.

Yes I do them stealthily as well, but what makes it a grey area is the possibility of a fight if it goes sideways, plus they are in Control systems which requires a fair bit of evading the nastier Goids like Glaives en route. There's no getting away from the fact you are deliberately entering enemy territory, which is not required for evacs.

Sampling? Bit of a grey area for me too, gameplay considerations aside. I don’t strictly mind combat, but that’s more so against humans than Thargoids(for a variety of reasons that would probably be a bit complicated to go into). Sampling, well, it’s not exactly killing them, but still pulling pieces off them.

But in order to get just the scouts you want you have to kill all the others. Combat again.

Both activities involve deliberately putting yourself in a fight situation, whether you then try to avoid fighting or not.

I have been through the very dilemma you have now and there are no easy answers, I think. Doubly difficult when giving out orders for the squad.

The first thing you see when you enter our Discord is the following;

"Rescues provide a non combative way of helping to defeat Thargoid attacks for those who don't wish to fight the aliens, or to provide a mixture of activities for everyone else. Supplies and support are just as important as soldiers in a war."

Which puts me in the awkward position of not being able to go against our remit and give out any combat stuff as an order, I can only do it as an "if you want to, your call" kind of thing, and even that makes me feel uneasy.

I've squared it with myself in much the same way you have and even thought oh well, sooner or later everyone is forced to fight, even those who didn't want to, but a fudge is still a fudge.